Awards

Beinecke Scholarship Announced

Grace Sparapani ’16, an English major with a correlate in Art History, has been awarded a Beinecke scholarship to support her graduate studies. She “would like to build off the work of Tiqqun and other theorists before me to craft a true theory of the Young Girl in my graduate studies, focusing on the Young Girl in art, particularly online and in Post-Internet art. As capital and socioeconomic status become more and more defined by consumption rather than production as we look toward a future of automated labor, and a carefully constructed personal brand becomes a standard, Young Girls are crucial in leading these changes. I hope to use this experience in both the theoretical and critical fields, crafting theory while working in academia as a professor, but also writing critically for art and culture magazines and, in doing so, forming a dialogue with artists and the artistic community as a whole.”

Vassar is among 106 schools invited to submit an application for consideration. The Committee on Fellowships nominates one person to go forward in the application process and there were 20 scholarships awarded this year.

The Beinecke Scholarship Program was established in 1971 by the Board of Directors of The Sperry and Hutchinson Company to honor Edwin, Frederick, and Walter Beinecke. The Board created an endowment to provide substantial scholarships for the graduate education of young men and women of exceptional promise. The program seeks to encourage and enable highly motivated students to pursue opportunities available to them and to be courageous in the selection of a graduate course of study in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Since 1975 the program has selected more than 470 college juniors from more than 100 different undergraduate institutions for support during graduate study at any accredited university.

Each scholar receives $4,000 immediately prior to entering graduate school and an additional $30,000 while attending graduate school. There are no geographic restrictions on the use of the scholarship, and recipients are allowed to supplement the award with other scholarships, assistantships and research grants. Scholars are encouraged to begin graduated study as soon as possible following graduation from college, and must utilize all of the funding within five years of completion of undergraduate studies.